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CNBC
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- CNBC
Can art save the earth? Artists share how their work strives to do just that
Politics, science and the law aren't the only fields with the ability to influence climate change policy — when it comes to making direct interventions, art shouldn't be underestimated, industry insiders say. The arts have an "essential" role to play in shaping environmental governance, according to the organization overseeing the arts program at the United Nations Ocean Conference (UNOC), which starts on June 9, in Nice, France. According to Markus Reymann, co-director of contemporary art and advocacy foundation TBA21 Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary, art and culture can "rekindle relationships" with the environment and those who inhabit it. At UNOC, TBA21 will oversee about 20 activities, including exhibitions, workshops and panel discussions, to raise awareness of and engagement with the ocean around the topics of regenerative practices and sustainability. The initiatives "assert the vital role of culture and arts in high-level political decision-making," according to an emailed statement. The exhibition "Becoming Ocean: a social conversation about the Ocean," is part of UNOC and features work from more than 20 artists, "exploring the main challenges facing the Ocean," according to TBA21's website. "[Art] can nurture and foster [the] care and the agency that we've now externalized to experts — the scientists are going to take care of this, politicians will take care of this … and so we [feel we] have nothing to do but consume and make money to be able to consume. And I think art can break that open," Reymann told CNBC in a video call. It's a theme that artist Maja Petric relates to. Her light installations, or "sculptures," aim to evoke what people feel when they experience pristine nature, she told CNBC by video call. When asked whether her work can influence climate policy, she said in an email: "As an artist, I don't speak in metrics or policy. But there is evidence: it's in every person who lingers with the piece, sometimes for minutes, sometimes for hours." In May, Petric won an innovation prize for her work "Specimens of Time, Hoh Rain Forest, 2025," as part of the Digital Art Awards put on by gallery The House of Fine Art and auction house Phillips. The sculpture appears in the form of a glass cube, which glows with light that changes color based on live temperature data taken from the Hoh Rain Forest in near Seattle, Washington State. "The idea is: what if … none of those landscapes exist in the future, but how will we think of them?" Petric said of her work. It's not only contemporary art that explores human influence on the natural world. "Historically, perhaps the greatest contribution artists have made in the context of environmental risk is to remind wider society of what might be lost. From Turner landscapes and Constable skyscapes to Richard Long's walks in the wilds, artists remind us of the preeminence of the natural world," Godfrey Worsdale, director of the Henry Moore Foundation, said in an email to CNBC. Worsdale also noted the German artist Joseph Beuys' "7000 Oaks" project, for which the artist and his team planted 7,000 oak trees, one of which stands outside the Henry Moore Institute in Leeds, England. "It is growing steadily as the modern-day city swirls around it. But as we know, the oak grows slowly and the world is changing ever more quickly," Worsdale said. Art can be a way of making the climate crisis "easier to comprehend and act upon," according to Lula Rappoport, community coordinator at Gallery Climate Coalition. "The greatest obstacle to meaningful policy is how abstract and immense climate change can feel," Rappoport told CNBC by email. "Art can bridge this gap by helping us understand challenging concepts and imagining alternative futures," she said. Rappoport cited Ice Watch London, a 2018 project that saw artist Olafur Eliasson bring 24 large ice blocks from an iceberg in Greenland to London, as an example of "how art can literally bring distant concepts close to home." For artist Ahmet Ogut, art has a "power and agency" that he said doesn't need to wait to be recognized by politicians or scientists. "Art doesn't need permission, it works in parallel systems, activating new imaginaries, forming temporary communities, and offering tools of resistance," he said in an email to CNBC. Ogut pointed to artist Lauren Bon's "Bending the River," a large-scale project that has diverted water from the Los Angeles River to irrigate public land as an artwork that has intervened "directly in ecological infrastructure," and created "a form of civic reparation." Ogut's work "Saved by the Whale's Tail (Saved by Art)," which will be launched at Stratford subway station in London on Sept. 10, was "inspired by an incident that occurred near Rotterdam in 2020 when a train overran the tracks and was saved by a sculpture of a whale's tail," according to Transport For London's website. "Art can help us stop pretending we're separate from the planet," Ogut said. "The future lies not in grand declarations, but in small, consistent solidarities. That's where art begins." Ogut also advocated for artists to be included early on in projects that tackle climate change, and cited Angel Borrego Cubero and Natalie Jeremijenko's Urban Space Station, which recycles building emissions and grows food indoors, as an example of "how deeply integrated artistic approaches can be." "We need more collaborations where artists are not brought in to merely "aestheticize" or question, but are involved from the beginning as equal partners," Ogut said.
The National
06-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The National
Lebanese artist Tarek Atoui opens a door to musical heritage of Atlas Mountains in Madrid show
Known for lending an experimental contemporary edge to traditional music from the ancient Arab world, Lebanese composer and artist Tarek Atoui takes visitors on a musical journey through the Atlas Mountains and beyond in his latest exhibition at Madrid's Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum (TBA21). On show until May 18, At-Tariq is the result of a three-year long research project that took Atoui along the ancient pilgrimage and trade routes that traverse North Africa, immersing himself in the musical and artisanal traditions of the Arab world and the Tamazgha. The show's title, At-Tariq, translates as 'The Nightcomer' or 'The Morning Star', and acts as the binding thread of the entire project. It refers to a visitor who comes at night seeking knowledge, refuge and companionship along a journey, be it a personal quest, nomadic wanderings or rest stops along the way. A verse in the Quran tells of always offering hospitality to At-Tariq – a notion that permeates the region's cultures and transcends boundaries. Atoui's project acts as an unconventional archive for the many ways the region opens its doors to travellers, offering comfort, food and entertainment to their guests. 'The Nightcomer is the person asking for hospitality, but also the knowledge seeker, the foreigner, in the sense of the one who comes with a real interest about a culture, about a place, and who sometimes is not coming to stay, but is the person passing through and pursuing a larger journey,' Atoui tells The National. 'It's a way of dealing with the world that I, unfortunately, think is missing nowadays, but there is so much richness to gain out of hospitality, in opening your door to The Nightcomer. 'In our modernity, maybe we should start looking at migrants, immigration and all this discourse currently present in our media, as something that is deriving from the story of The Nightcomer and its symbolism,' he adds. 'As The Nightcomer is how I'm moving through the Arab world, starting with Morocco and the Atlas. 'I go in an unannounced way, knocking on traditional musicians' doors and asking them for recordings, speaking to them and learning about these traditions from the perspective of those who play this music today. I learn what it means for them, how they play and build the instruments around them, and the whole ecosystem that surrounds this music, from crafts and industries to daily life routines.' Curated by Daniela Zyman, the exhibition transforms TBA21's gallery space into a sprawling majlis that invites guests to discover the varied sounds, textures and crafts of this diverse culture, viewing heritage through a contemporary lens. The majlis is made up of handcrafted rugs, pillows, pots, musical instruments and objects created specifically for the show by artisans Atoui encountered on his travels, almost a chronology of the craft cultures of the expedition. Around the seating areas are five kinetic sound stations, a series of objects that produce atmospheric sounds – such as water dripping from pots into a clay basin, glass beads clanking, textiles brushing drums or a fossilised tooth scraping against stone. Hidden speakers have been placed inside clay vases or huge animal-hide drums, distributing the sound evenly, and cables have been disguised by long strands of beads that snake across the floor. 'We have encounters not only with musicians, but also with crafts and craftspeople. The pottery that's in that show were made at the bottom of the Atlas outside of a town called Zagora, close to the Algerian border, in a landscape that is very dry and very hot,' Atoui says. 'These pots were made naturally by a potter who has no electricity, who has to go 14 kilometres to get the water, and make this out of local soil. They came out rough, but with a very special acoustic to them. 'The carpets were made in Taznakht, all the way up in the mountains, by a community of women who weave collectively,' he adds. 'The colouring of these carpets came from a very old method that is now almost gone, which is colouring with saffron. Saffron is an expensive product nowadays, but it is massively planted in the region of the Atlas. These women collected old rotten saffron that is not edible any more and used it to colour these carpets, giving this very special yellow that is hard to obtain otherwise.' The sounds created using these objects act as a baseline to the main hour-and-a-half long composition Atoui has composed for the space. This was created with musicians he collaborated with on the road, as well as New York composer and percussionist Susie Ibarra, Cairo violinist, musician and producer Nancy Mounir, and experimental Berlin artist Ziur. The resulting soundscape, developed during a residency in Cordoba, layers traditional rhythms and voices from Amazigh – also known as Berber – culture with contemporary electroacoustic and instrumental elements. The kinetic sound stations only produce sound when triggered by the Amazigh voices in the main composition, as a subtle call and response. Much of this musical heritage is passed down informally through oral and visual learning, leaning heavily on improvisation, without traditional forms and formats. Atoui brought together a host of musicians from different backgrounds, to help take on the challenge of condensing something intangible into a more fixed format that could be understood by an everyday listener. Without the distraction of watching the music performed, as is usual, Atoui's dimly-lit majlis offers a meditative quality where the entire focus is on the sonic, lulling the body into the rhythms the longer guests sit and listen. Throughout the exhibition's run, performances, workshops and activations of the space are planned, such as a recent performance by Atoui and an ensemble from Ouarzazate and Zagora, staged as part of the programme of ARCOMadrid art fair. Such performances allow a rare opportunity to experience the music first hand. A side room before entering the main show offers drums and other instruments for people to come and try out; an 'Exploratorium' that will also conduct workshops, offering a tactile, participatory element. The TBA21 show is the first chapter of a project that Atoui intends to expand on in the years to come, staging new iterations in other countries and adding to the exhibition to include new encounters. 'It's a journey that follows the roads of the Tuareg people and the roads of pilgrimage that traverse the Sahara, rather than the Mediterranean. From the Atlas, traversing the southern roads, through Tunisia, Algeria, Libya, all the way to the south of Saudi Arabia and up to Makkah,' Atoui says. 'I will be looking at these different traditions in every country, also finding similarities and connections, because the Amazigh are spread in all these areas, but also the Sufis, Khazars, Alawis, and Kabyles, all connected through nomadism and music traditions. 'Every time we go somewhere, a new section from a different country is going to be added, and the main composition will evolve over time, to include new chapters.'
